


Ghost On The Mall Floor

by hulklinging



Series: Sapphic Somewhere [6]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, First Meetings, Fluff, Heelies, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9599228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: Henri wears her lucky shirt and her heelies to the mall.Someone else has the same idea.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [howlikeagod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/howlikeagod/gifts).



The best thing about heelies being out of fashion, Henri Cheng thinks, as she rolls down the hall, is that no one remembers to ban them anymore.

Technically, there's probably something in the mall rules, but it's not like they're posted somewhere easily accessible (on some forgotten page of their badly-designed website, she'd basically found it by mistake), so she can't be expected to know they're not allowed, can she?

She's just rolling past the Disney store when an out of breath security guard calls out to her.

"Hey, you!"

She stops, waiting for him to catch up. "Me?"

He catches up to her, and looks her up in down, his face crumpling in confusion.

"No, not you. The other you."

"The other me?"

Henri's trying to pay attention, she is, because this is shaping up to be a pretty hilarious situation, if she follows through with it. But she can't help but be a little distracted by the girl who had just exited the Disney store to her left. She's tall, would be taller if she wasn't slouching, an easy bend of her shoulders that makes her difficult to look away from. It's the easy curve of her spine, the messy mohawk braid she's sporting, the patches on her backpack that are just barely holding on, the knee in her jeans that's given up entirely. She's stunning, and Henri is very gay (bisexual, really, maybe demiromantic but she's sixteen and she's still figuring things out, and there was more room to stretch out in Vancouver but she's not in Vancouver right now and with this girl in front of her all she knows is that she's Very Gay) so she can't help but follow the girl with her eyes.

"Yeah, you know, the other one you were with."

"Sorry, mister, it's just me, today!"

Maybe he's remembering them from last time, when Cheng2 dropped her ice cream in the fountain and then SickSteve had fished it out to throw it at Lee-Squared, who had shrieked like they'd been shot and gotten the whole batch of them kicked out. Not their finest hour, sure, but it was a while ago, and Henri had hardly been responsible for that one.

Henri had been responsible for making Cheng2 laugh hard enough to drop her ice cream in the first place. Jesters, Henri thinks, are so rarely respected the way they should be these days.

The girl sounds like she's whistling, maybe to a song that she's pumping through her big clunky headphones. Henri has the sudden need to know what song it is, to mouth along to the words (against the girl's pale skin, ideally).

She is also, Henri realizes, wearing heelies.

Suddenly, the guard's confusing rant about her 'accomplice' makes a lot more sense.

"I think I saw someone who fits that description heading that way," Henri says, pointing down the hallway. "Maybe to hit up the food court?"

The guard's eyes narrow in suspicion, which is totally fair, as the girl that he's looking for is totally right behind him. Still, he has no reason not to believe her, so he turns towards the food court. He shouts a "those aren't allowed in here!" behind him as a final word, to which she says at quite a regular tone, knowing he wouldn't listen even if she were to shout.

"The rule only covers bicycles and skateboards." She thinks she likes heelies more now than she ever did when they were all the rage. Mostly because all those rule edits had been done with sticky notes in the post-heelie boom panic, and those have since been lost. Once the guard has turned a corner, she turns herself, and follows the cute girl.

"Hey!"

The shout must cut through whatever is playing through the headphones, because the girl turns. Her face bursts into a grin when she sees Henri rolling towards her, and extends a hand.

Henri takes it, and then her and the cute girl are holding hands. That was... Surprisingly easy. Easy enough that Henri actually stops, staring down at their tangled hands until the girl starts pulling her forward again.

"Thanks for the save!" She says, her voice light and airy, like smoke. She's got glitter in her hair and around her eyes and Henri is half-convinced she's stumbled upon some tree spirit, insert some modern retelling here, Puck on rollerskates and love-in-idleness a computer virus. A virus she's definitely caught, because between the sparkly eyes and the hand-holding, she's feeling a little faint. "I like your shirt."

It's Henri's lucky Madonna shirt, because she had a feeling she was gonna need some extra luck today. She sends a silent thanks to her past self, who also took the time to make sure her hair was as tall as possible this morning. It's the hair that gives her the bravery to return the girl's smile with one of her own and add a wink.

"I'm Henri."

"Noah!" They're step-push-rolling in perfect sync, gaining speed as they head towards the far end of the mall. "Do you like gelato?"

"I am alive and not currently lactose intolerant, so duh."

"Great!" Noah gives a little nudge, and they take a corner daringly wide, scaring an old lady on a bench as they do. "I know a place. It's good!"

And hand in hand, they heelie down the hall, identical smiles on very different faces. The day ends with Henri's cheeks smeared with glitter, her ribs sore from laughing, and a scrawled number on her arm.

"It's more romantic this way," when Henri offers the girl her phone and an empty contacts slot. Said by most people, it would seem cheesy, but with Noah's bright tone it just seems... Real. Immediate. Henri, usually better at dealing with things when there's at least a few wires between them, blushes bright red but doesn't protest as Noah marks her arm with bright purple ink. She's on her way home now, and can't help but trace the numbers whenever she's caught at a stoplight.

Once she's home and ran the gauntlet of her over-involved, much-beloved roommates and their interest in her love life, she types in the number and let's her finger hover over the text button.

 _Fuck it,_  she thinks, and presses the 'call' button instead.

"Hello?"

Henri smiles, lying back on her bed and staring at the glowy stars that decorate her bedroom's ceiling.

"Hey, it's Henri Cheng. You wouldn't believe the day I had."

Noah giggles, and Henri loves it, even through the phone. "It was a rad one?"

"So rad. I met this amazing girl." She takes the jump. "I'd love to take her out for dinner sometime. Or a movie. Cool punk girls like movies, right?"

Noah's still giggling, although it's gotten a little softer, like it's just for Henri now.

"We love movies. But only if I get to hold a cute girl's hand."

"You drive a hard bargain." Henri's already dragging her laptop over, so she can see what's playing, pick a movie and a time. "Are you free anytime this week?"

"How about tomorrow?" There's a moment of silence. "If that's not too soon for you."

"No, not at all!"

"Great! I'll meet you at the theatre, around seven?"

"Yes!" Henri has no idea what's playing then, but apparently Noah doesn't care, and Henri can do that, Henri can not panic over what to see and agonize over what time, sure yeah Henri can totally do that. "See you then!"

"Bye, Henri!" Noah hangs up, and Henri lets the anxiety buzz up for a few minutes, until she focuses on her breathing and reminds herself that it's Noah that picked the time, so she won't be mad if there's nothing good playing then, and that if they can laugh themselves silly over fancy ice cream, they can probably have a good time regardless of movie.

Letting her shoulders relax, she clicks away from the 'playing now' page and starts looking for the rules. She wonders whether they have a strong stance on heelies.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'm [on tumblr](http://hulklinging.tumblr.com). Also, if you like my fics and wanna enter my [fic giveaway](http://hulklinging.tumblr.com/post/156456690078/ziggys-follower-milestone-fic-giveaway), it's right there for ya~


End file.
